David Fleming, national officer at trade union Unite, described the announcements as "brutal".

"Once more these banks are attacking some of their lowest paid staff to achieve cost savings. Today is yet another devastating day for bank workers as they witness these institutions pressing ahead with massive job cuts, without any consideration as to the consequences for these individuals, their families and the economy as a whole."

Lloyds Banking Group said in a statement that its policy "is always to use natural turnover and to redeploy people wherever possible to retain their expertise and knowledge within the group".

"Where it is necessary for employees to leave the company, it will look to achieve this by offering voluntary redundancy. Compulsory redundancies will always be a last resort," it added.

RBS said in a statement: "We are working hard to rebuild RBS in order to repay taxpayers for their support and having to cut jobs is the most difficult part of this process."